1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates a method of reworking a head suspension for supporting a magnetic head in a disk drive installed in an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer and a cutting jig used for the rework.
2. Description of Related Art
A head suspension supports a magnetic head to write and read data to and from a magnetic disk in a disk drive. The head suspension includes a slider on which the magnetic head is arranged and a flexure having a tongue to hold the slider. The head suspension provided with the slider is sometimes called a head gimbal assembly (HGA).
Head suspensions are tested for their characteristics such as electrical characteristics after manufacturing and only those that pass the test are shipped. Any head suspension that has failed the test due to a problem on the slider thereof is reworked by removing the slider and replacing the same with a new one.
An example of such rework is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-210491. This related art will be explained with reference to FIGS. 1A and 1B that are side views illustrating a slider 2 to be removed from a tongue 3 of a flexure of a head suspension.
In FIG. 1A, heated tweezers 1 are used to hold rear side faces of the slider 2. Force is applied to the tweezers 1 in a direction to remove the slider 2 from the tongue 3, and at the same time, the slider 2 is heated for about four seconds. The position to hold the slider 2 with the tweezers 1 is on the rear side of a longitudinal center of the slider 2, so that heat is conducted to an adhesive 4 between the slider 2 and the tongue 3 and not to a solder fillet 5 or an electrode pad 6.
Due to the heat and tensile force applied to the adhesive 4 on the slider 2, the adhesive 4 whose melting point is lower than that of the solder fillet 5 melts and the slider 2 is removed from the tongue 3. At this time, a joint 8 between the solder fillet 5 and an electric terminal 7 is broken and the slider 2 is detached from the head suspension.
According to this related art, force is applied in the direction to remove the slider 2 from the tongue 3, and therefore, stress is applied to the tongue 3 and the periphery thereof to deform them. The slider removing force also acts on the flexure to occur a deformation mode to separate the tongue 3 from a dimple formed on the flexure. If the tongue 3 and the periphery thereof are deformed or if the tongue 3 and dimple are separated from each other, the head suspension becomes unworthy of rework.
In this way, the related art has the problems of damaging (deformation, separation, and the like) a head suspension to make it not-reusable and deteriorating product yields.